March 9, 2010

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By Josh Bowe for utamavs.com

KATY - Texas - Samantha Morrow wasn't in the mood for guarantees Tuesday afternoon. But Morrow did state her expectations of this week quite clearly.

"My expectation are that we go out there and play the best basketball we've played all year," coach Morrow said.

UT Arlington had a light practice Tuesday afternoon in preparation of tonight's Southland Conference Tournament Quarterfinal match up with UT San Antonio at 8:30.

Not wanting to overexert themselves, the Mavericks took it easy during the light practice as they did drills and walked through their plays and game plan.

UTA lost its final game of the regular season to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday. Morrow said that loss is already way behind them.

"That game's behind us," Morrow said. "It's over with. This is what it's all about. We know if we want to get to the NCAA Tournament that you have to win this tournament."

The Mavericks found that out the hard way last season. Finishing 22-11 and 14-2 in conference, UTA won the Southland conference regular season championship. In the finals of the conference tournament however, UTA fell to UTSA.

That loss sent UTSA to the NCAA Tournament with the automatic bid and UTA was left with the Women's NIT - a secondary tournament for teams who just miss the cut of the NCAA Tournament.

"We were fine with going to the WNIT - that was great," Morrow said. "We got to the championship game and didn't play our best."

Senior guard Meghan Nelson and junior guard Tamara Simmons were starters on last year's team. Both said the focus and determination was at Tuesday's practice right from the get-go.

"You just have to approach each game by staying aggressive - staying focused," Nelson said. "You have to have a short memory when those types of games happen."

"We just need to stay focused at the goal at hand," Simmons said. "Make sure we go out there and play with a lot of effort."

Effort and focus was spoken a lot after practice. After the senior night loss to TAMUCC, Morrow wouldn't expect anything less from her team. Regardless of being a fifth seed, she said all it takes is one good week to keep playing next week.

"This is it," Morrow said with a smile. "Just three games in a row."